Does God still give visions to people today? Should believers expect visions to be a part of their Christian experience?

You must indeed first receive the truth in this way. God will not communicate anything to you or to me directly, as He did to prophets and kings of old. We cannot now expect a vision or a revelation. We have everything complete in the written word — everything that is good for us to know; and we are left in the world to learn these things. But, beloved friends, the question for each of us to consider is just this: in learning scripture have we been fully “assured” of it, have we laid hold of it with our whole being, has the sum of our affections been concentrated upon the Living Person Who is the centre and subject and substance of the revelation of God's holy word?

We consider that Joel 2:28 had a partial fulfillment at Pentecost. Its final accomplishment is still to be looked for in the history of God's ancient people. God can speak to men now by dreams or a vision of the night, but we consider that the true and proper way for a child of God to be guided is by the Word and Spirit of God. It is very unsafe ground indeed to be merely guided by dreams or by the impressions of a man's mind. We vastly prefer the solid imperishable Word of God.

And, now to your special inquiry more in detail. There are many points to consider. First, I believe this casting on, dependent, seeking His will spiritually, to be a privilege, though connected with the ruined state of the church. He cannot cease to guide us, or where should we be? But He may not, and does not, manifest His action with a fallen as with a fresh and nascent church. He never does so. "We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet; neither is there among us any that knows how long." Yet Haggai says, "My Spirit remains among you," as when they came out of Egypt. I believe faithfulness, in such a time, special privilege. "Hast not denied my name" does not say much, but when this happens all around, it is a great deal, and great grace to be kept. You cannot be expected - "according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that by them, thou mightest war a good warfare." You came out with a true heart to One who loved you, and seek souls for Him - All right, and great grace given to us; but there was no "separate me Barnabas and Paul," which, though present grace must after all sustain, still was a source of strength - "by them." I do not believe it is any loss, but it is different; and he that has the secret of Christ, while he will not limit His power, yet will know the difference and enter into it. "Thou hast a little strength"; and these were pillars when God built His temple. We find they were forbidden to go into Bithynia, sought to go into Mysia, the Spirit suffered them not; they were forbidden to preach the word in Asia, and then by a vision in a dream were led into Macedonia. Now I would not the least deny that God can by His Holy Spirit suggest to us a special place of service. I do not doubt He may; but it is not an open manifestation as that which we here read of.

We are not among those who assert that such gifts as those mentioned in Corinthians are quite impossible in our days, for who are we to place limits on the power of God or to take it upon ourselves to say what He will or will not do? We are responsible however to discern the true character of all that presents itself to us as being of God. We may face undoubted facts judging of them in the light of the Word, which if really understood will put us on our guard, save us from being deceived and lead us only to accredit what is unmistakably of Himself. May we point out a few things that Scripture indicates?

We too may have dreams; and one may not say that all spring from the busy working of the brain, or that God may not deal thus as of old in slumberings on the bed, to withdraw man from self-will and hide pride from him. But we have as believers, and especially as Christians, far better than such comparatively vague intimations. We have the scriptures in all their fulness, revealing God, His counsels, work, will, and ways, from eternity to eternity. We have also the Holy Spirit sent from the Father and the Son in heaven, never to leave but to abide with us and in us; Who when come undertakes to guide us into all the truth, and declare to us the things to come, glorifying our Lord Jesus in both. He is the standing, intimate, and ready interpreter, not like one among a thousand, as Elihu says, nor even as Joseph supernaturally endowed, but a divine Person dwelling in us. May we have grace to abjure all that grieves and hinders, and to cultivate what is of Himself so as to enjoy the privilege and the fruit more and more. For though God was ever faithful from the earliest days, no saints ever had this wondrous privilege till the Saviour died, rose, and ascended, whom the Holy Spirit thus honours.

Men were employed throughout after the angelic mission to Cornelius but God is apparent in every part to disarm prejudice, own righteousness, display grace, and put honour on the name of Jesus to the blessing of man and to His own glory, for all which weighty ends the law, of which Israel boasted, had proved altogether unavailing. The great apostle Peter was indebted under God to the Gentile's invitation to solve the problem of his vision. But the Spirit is the agent of all blessing, intelligence, and power in the believer; and so His place is made conspicuous here (vers. 19, 20). It must be a divine impulse, and not a mere deduction of reasoning: for us and all this is a lesson of inestimable value. At first no doubt, sensible signs and extraordinary power ushered in His presence and manifested the new truth of His action in man; but the reality abides, as He abides with us, for ever, though outward signs in divine wisdom are no longer vouchsafed. This draws greater importance than ever to scripture in these last days when unbelievers turn from it more and more to unprofitable and mischievous fables.

Satan desired to trouble them by some means, and the apostle shews that signs and wonders are generally found on the enemy's side. He would have already succeeded for the moment if he could divert them from a scriptural expectation. "But of the times and the seasons, ye have no need that I write unto you, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them … But ye are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief." You are of the day. That is the position of the Christian. He is peacefully already of the day. He needs neither signs, nor wonders, nor dreams. He has the word. He ought to possess his soul in patience, humbly keeping his place. You will generally find that sisters are the ones who have seen these things, and I have not, moreover, noticed that this has drawn them, or others, nearer to God. God can use sisters, and often honour them greatly in their service, but it is well that this should be in much quietness and modesty of spirit; lest the enemy, who ever seeks, and seeks more than ever now, to trouble and mislead the souls of believers - lest, I say, he should take occasion from the weakness of the vessel - weakness which demands honour from us, but which, on the part of the sisters themselves, requires patience and quietness. So I beg these sisters to weigh these things well, and not to allow themselves readily to put faith in these dreams, as if they came from God. Let them not allow themselves to be carried away by their imagination, lest they should fall into the snare of the enemy, and lest he should take advantage of this to shake the faith of some.

Then he brings in the lions as a figure to show that, however strong and great and matchless a lion may be, still he may be broken — and so it is with men who play the lion in the world. And now he brings in a vision of the night. He was very serious. And God has often used visions of the night. It is true we have something a great deal better; we have the vision of the day; we have the great vision of Christ manifested in flesh; we have the vision of God showing Himself, and God speaking and acting for us in this world of sin and death. But he refers to what he saw or heard then. "Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men. Fear came upon me, and trembling" — it was evidently not enough of grace that he had; grace does not make people fear in this kind of way. It is judgment that does so, and this is what these good men are full of; they were full of the spirit of judgment.

Joseph, the reputed father of the Lord, was directed several times by means of dreams; and Pilate was warned by his wife to have nothing to do with that just man because of what she had suffered in a dream. Matt. 1:20; Matt. 2:12-22; Matt. 27:19. It is to be remarked that in the last days when God pours out His Spirit on all flesh the sons and daughters will prophesy, and the young men shall see visions, and the old men shall dream dreams. Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17. This will be the way that God will make known His mind in those days.

By means of visions God often vouchsafed to make known His will. When Samuel was a child, before the word of Jehovah was revealed to him, for a time 'there was no open vision.' 1 Sam. 3:1, 15. With the prophets they were frequently employed: more than twenty times we read of them in Daniel. In the future when the Spirit will be poured out, Israel's sons and daughters will prophesy; the old men will dream dreams, and the young men will see visions. Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17. The book of Revelation is a series of visions. Rev. 1:2.